Life With Honor

If you are married to Cathy Gale
- sorry, Honor Blackman - is life anything like the judo type existence she
live in The Avengers? Or how do you keep that outside the front door? In this
interview with SHELLEY WEAVER Honor's husband, actor Maurice Kaufmann, gives
the answer to these questions. Peter Bolton took the pictures.

THE AVENGERS, said actor Maurice
Kaufmann wryly, governs our life.

He was sitting in a viewing room
at the ITV studios at Teddington, chain-smoking - and waiting for the showing
of an episode of the Saturday evening series which stars his wife, Honor Blackman.

"We hardly see each other these
days," he explained. "If it were just the rehearsing and the programme
it would not be so bad. But it is everything else that comes with her success
at Cathy Gale.

"Fittings for clothes, photographic
sessions, interviews, conferences. There is no end to it."

Maurice Kaufmann had been at the
studios all day, watching his wife rehearse, waiting for her to finish that
week's episode. He is currently making a film and most days leaves their flat
in Fulham just before seven each morning.

"Honor is still asleep then
so I creep round and get myself a cup of tea and a bite to eat. I get home about
six in the evening but Honor is seldom home before eight.

"Then there are our scripts
to go through. I always work through The Avengers with her and she goes
through my parts with me.

That's where so many married couples
in a situation like ours go wrong. They don't share. They don't take an interest
in each other. We do. We work together the whole time. We see everything the
other one does. We talk about it, advise each other."

Maurice went on: "But Honor
is so serious. She is a real professional. She worries like mad. She thinks
of little else but her part and it takes up so very much of her time. I worry
too, but not the way she does."

He seemed to be able to share deeply
in his wife's success. He was interested in it because it had become a part
of her, a way of life.

"Sometimes they work her like
a man," he explained. "I have to put my foot down and tell her to
slow up.

"She would never dream of ringing
up to say that she could not go into the studios, no matter what she was feeling
like. So I have to play and do it for her."

Maurice takes with good humour the
barrage of cracks from other men about being married to the girl who has become
television's "glamour toughie." "You would not believe some of
the things people say to me.

"They seem to think that she
acts the judo-throwing Cathy Gale at home. They seem frightened of her."

He has learned to come to terms
with the envy, the curiosity, the interest of other men. He is amused by it.
He refuses to be irritated by it or to resent it.

"Of course I don't resent any
of this," he states quite calmly. "Why should I? Honor was an actress
when I married her. I knew what I was doing. I would never expect her or ask
her to give it up.

"We both want children one
day. Honor would make a marvellous mother. But we have not made any plans for
a family."

Maurice Kaufmann is obviously one
of this wife's greatest fans, able to enjoy her part in The Avengers as much
as she does, participating in her acting life and identifying himself with her
career as if it were his own.

"When we go to parties it is
really very amusing. The men get so aggressive." He said. "Some of
them - particularly when they have had a bit to drink - seem to resent the way
Cathy Gale can take care of herself. It takes away their male ego.

"They identify Honor with Cathy
Gale so they take it out on her. And she always rises to the bait and gets aggressive
back.

"I have to get between them.
With us it's the husband stopping the wife having a fight - not the other way
around.

"In point of fact the only
way that The Avengers has changed Honor as a person is to give her more
confidence. At home, of course, she is just about the most feminine woman I
have ever known.

"Her complete femininity is
staggering and is one of the secrets of her success.

"But," Maurice declared:
"Judo I draw the line at. It is too dangerous."

Sunday is the one day that Maurice
and Honor have together. During the week the meals that Honor cooks have to
be simple and quick. Her husband often helps with the shopping. "I quite
enjoy it," he says.

"On Sunday we just mooch around
the flat and read the papers. Honor cooks something that I really enjoy like
roast lamb or Boeuf Bourgignon.

"For the past eighteen months
we have been house-hunting every Sunday afternoon and at last we think we have
found somewhere. At the moment we are in Honor's flat."

The couple were married nearly two
years ago after they met - in a West End play called "Point of Honour."

As the viewing room darkened in
preparation for the showing of The Avengers Maurice repeated: "We
do share everything. And we try to get as much time together as possible.

"I am not saying I would not
take a really good part that meant going away - if it were really good. I have
been offered one recently with a foreign location which I might have take if
I had been single.

"But Honor has given me a home
life. And that is something that I have never had before."

As the new episode of the series
flashed on to the set he turned all his attention to his wife on the screen.
And when Cathy Gale, in full black leather fighting kit, battled with the villain,
her husband squirmed and wriggled in his seat like a kid at a Saturday matinee
of blood and thunder.

When the show was over Maurice was
quick to congratulate Honor.

She looked up at him seriously.
"Was it really all right?" she asked. "You were marvellous, darling."
he said.

NEXT WEEK: How many minutes in
a week - or where does Honor's time go?